One Back Room Down!

As I continue to work through my classroom, I'm taking advantage of strange times.  Like 2-hour delays.  Even though I technically had a delay too, I came in about an hour and a half earlier than necessary to get some organizing time.  Here is the insane amount of winter weather that caused the delay:

The snowflakes did get a bit larger for about 3 minutes.  This is part of the view out my classroom window.  That's our local community center next door.

Anyway, in my before pictures, you got a glimpse of my back rooms.  I am blessed with a TON of storage, but I also share.  The other room is science storage for the school (not even going there yet).  In this room, I have the shelves and cabinets underneath them.  Well.  I would, if I could clean them out.  Still working on that.  It's hard to throw away other peoples' hard work.  Most of the filing cabinets in these pictures belong to the school office manager (who has very little storage), and I have been cleaning out the remnants of about 15 years of past teachers since my mentor retired.  Sloooow work, I tell ya.  So--review the before pictures:

Ugh!  Stuff EVERYWHERE!  I am ashamed.  We sometimes test kids in these rooms during EOGs (all those separate setting kiddos have to have SOMEWHERE to go!), and I wouldn't be able to focus in here.  It's bad, because a lot of our 1:1 students have ADD/ADHD and this would NOT be an ideal setting for any of them.

And now:

I wish there was a better way to take in the entire room!  I need a different angle.  Maybe through the window in the adjoining room later...
Anyway, other than dustiness on the file cabinets and some sloppy, leaning books, I feel really good about this space.  I am going to attack those darn cabinets, but I haven't gotten up the nerve just yet.  I think I'm going to work on the visible mess in the other room first.  Then, I can do all the cabinets simultaneously.  That way, I can clear, combine, and reorganize all of the hidden goodies. 

I'm really glad I signed up for this challenge, even if I don't keep up and I don't follow directions and go in my own order.  I was one of those AIG students who ignored directions when I was in school, too.  I'm sure my teachers hated that.  I'm posting to teacher resource organization because that is what MOST of this stuff is.  Don't really know what else to call it...